This program brings together a selection of films from different periods and origins that sit at the intersection of painting and cinema, examples of artists (painters who film, filmmakers who paint) who have challenged the specificity of both media. These approaches include “painted films” in which artists paint directly onto the celluloid, a tradition boasting such major figures as Stan Brakhage, José Antonio Sistiaga, Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Harry Smith (though here we have opted for less canonical names). At the other end of the spectrum, we also find “filmed paintings,” whether these are actual paintings being filmed or films that capture the act of painting itself (ranging from a canvas to the walls of a room).
In these images, we find drops, strokes, and rivers of paint in varying colors and densities, alongside brushes, watercolors, acrylics, and ink—"mixed media", as it is often termed in an exhibition context. And hands, many hands. Prominent figures from the history of painting appear, as do anonymous house painters. At times, film (celluloid) serves as an alternative medium to the traditional canvas, though the program also features other possible surfaces, such as glass or skin. In these works, the process—the movement of the paint and its dynamic transformations—proves far more compelling than any hypothetical final composition; the artist’s mastery of cinematic elements (camera work, framing, editing, animation techniques, and even storytelling) plays a significant role in this.
Painted films and filmed paintings – and what emerges in between – point to the factor of time (an essential property of cinema) as the key to the development of these types of intermedial works that expand the possibilities of painting. At the same time, painted films and filmed paintings offer a range of options for a cinema that seeks, among other things, to reveal painting as a process, while using that unfolding evolution as its source of images.
Gloria Vilches
Wed 23/9 Kino Kinoteka 16:00
